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The only kind of Let's Play I'll watch is a blind one. The whole point is to see their genuine reactions.

For me if a lets play is entertaining enough with both the game and player is entertaining then I'll watch it.

My "new" favorite LP channel is 1shotplays as they are a duo that plays blind though out their games while having drinking rules in play, hilarity abound.

Edited by The-Azure-Star-Of-Orion on Mar 4th 2024 at 12:56:39 PM

Game Grumps isn't a Let's Play channel. It's a comedy channel where playing games is the premise.

Edited by Resileafs on Mar 4th 2024 at 4:07:59 AM

Well, it depends, a blind lets play is best for story-driven games, but an experienced lets play can be more fun for strategy games.

Is that really a Let's Play, though? Sounds like more like a livestream or a walkthrough if the point is to see someone who's better than you. Not saying that can't be entertaining, of course, but I tend to think of an LP as a self-contained playthrough of a game with a definitive beginning, middle, and end.

It's possible that my view is too narrow.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 4th 2024 at 4:09:55 AM

I'd always thought the main complaint about Game Grumps' blind plays is that they tend to not pay attention when something important, such as a very story-specific cutscene or a pop-up explaining a game mechanic, appears, and then later complain about not understanding that exact thing that was on-screen just a few minutes ago.

I'm all for blind Let's Plays; hell, one VTuber recently did a completely blind playthrough of Outer Wilds, and she somehow completely missed White Hole Station the entire time, which made for some great content outside of the videos themselves.

The risk of a blind Let's Play is indeed that you miss important things, but that's why I seek out more meticulous LP'ers, typically. Game Grumps may be entertaining in a "ha ha, look at those idiots" sort of way, but I despise that style of content and will turn it off in a heartbeat. If I accidentally click on one, I'll delete it from my history so I don't get fed more of them.

PewDiePie, Markiplier, and their ilk can jump down a black hole. I don't consider them LP'ers so much as "shriektubers": content creators whose primary audience is children who derive endless entertainment from seeing them overreact to jump scares. They've done more harm to the content creation industry than all the scammers in the world.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 4th 2024 at 4:13:57 AM

> They've done more harm to the content creation industry than all the scammers in the world.

spongebob really does have the reaction to everything..

Anyway,the 'harm' they've done is actually minimal because people enjoy their videos.

Edited by Ultimatum on Mar 4th 2024 at 9:18:42 AM

Well, again, GG is a comedy channel first. Most of Arin and Dan's brain power is taken not by the game, but by the comedy they think of doing while playing or their random conversation topics. Plus there are the big breaks between recording sessions as they go on live shows cross-country so things they saw earlier are forgotten between then and now.

They're in it for the funnies, not the gamies.

My preferred style of Let's Play is the one where people sit and talk about not just the game, but also whatever they can think of. It’s a more down-to-earth style that makes me feel like I’m sitting on the couch with them.

Super Gaming Bros. is my current fave. Sure, I occasionally think Elliot is way too loud and tries a bit too hard to be funny sometimes, and they’re not above some vulgar humor, which I understand is not for everyone. But I find their content to be overall chill, their chemistry is great and they provide some great laughs. Especially when Uncle Greg joins them - That man is so chill and a natural at both conversation and delivering funny oneliners.

For other chill gaming content, I adore Vinny from Vinesauce. He’s both very eccentric and (mostly) calm and collected, and his laugh is infectious.

sounds like false advertisement.

x4 that's a little harsh man.

A balance of both's strengths is what appeals to me in such a Let's Play. Genuine reactions are great, but there's nothing more frustrating than seeing the player get stuck on a certain part of the game because they can't figure out what to do next (whether such a part is usually cryptic for most players or not is another matter), and refuse to look up a guide despite their cluelessness on the matter. It's what turned me off of one Let's Play of a game that I tend to listen to when I'm doing something else.

I'm with Fighteer on being turned off by the schadenfreude of deliberately dumb playstyles and aren't into jumpscare plays either.

Game Grumps' description on their 'about' on Youtube is "Game Grumps: Dan and Arin playin' games, gettin' mad and being bad!".

Looks like they're advertising themselves exactly as they are.

at that point a podcast is better for them.

5.4 millions subscribers on Youtube say otherwise. Arin and Dan (and Jon in the past) carved themselves a niche on Youtube that allows them to live comfortably and pay a good number of employees.

I'm personally fond of BigKlingy, even though he's a bit more obscure - he generally avoids getting stuck for long periods of time and (usually) has genuine fun with whatever he's playing at the time. I enjoy that.

Also, he's certifiably One of Us. Automatic points.

I do find it a little tiresome when L Pers do endless shoutouts to followers donating money and such. What's the point of me hearing about some rando giving you money? I'm hear to hear about the game.

When you're livestreaming, it's a fairly common and courteous practice to shout-out subscribers and donors. A lot of streamers also have obnoxious, screen-hogging toasts. It's one thing to do that while playing Minecraft or Call of Duty, but it's super irritating in narrative games, especially during story segments.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I simply don't enjoy being shrieked at performatively or watching an audience, which is apparently composed primarily of five-year-olds, spamming "pogchamp" memes nonstop. Looking at you, xQc.

Blind plays don't properly show off the game very well and as such don't do the game or certain content justice. The very least don't be judgmental as your lack of knowledge invalidates your criticism.

People wouldn't accept "farting around" like this for videos covering other activities (sports, music, cooking, hobbies, education, etc.), why should video games be given special treatment?

Chugga actually knowing what he was doing and going above and beyond was the only reason I was the least bit tolerant of his older content. Not saying everybody has to have the same standards as him.

Edited by MetalMichelangelo on Mar 4th 2024 at 4:49:52 AM

Everybody likes what they like. For me the value of a Let's Play (much like a reaction video to a movie) is in seeing another person experience the same things I did. It lets me recapture the feeling of playing it for the first time. That experience is lost if they're not doing it blind.

I sucked at Portal 2 the first time I played it, too. That's not the problem, although I do appreciate when LP'ers clip out the longer brain farts.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 4th 2024 at 5:51:50 AM

That's just not true, there are plenty of lets plays that show off the game properly without all the meta bells and whistles of audience participation. And honestly, I do not care about the audience. I don't care about the studio audience in TV shows, and I don't care about the audience in lets plays.

I mean, you wouldn't tolerate the actors in a sitcom constantly doing shoutouts to the studio audience either, would you?

Im not sure I'd compare a LPer to actors in a sitcom (ie: People playing roles and performing a fiction narrative) vs, say, night show hosts or variety show hosts, who absolutely interact with the audience.

Yeah, same like I wouldn't tolerate an apple in my orange; two entirely different forms of media, two entirely different experiences.

Heck, the obvious counter to the sitcom thing (which again, is just a weird comparison), is theater actors , who actually do a job much closer to sitcom actors than an LPer does, and can interact with the audience.

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 4th 2024 at 6:00:58 AM

I feel like we have a lot of different definitions crossing the streams here. A Let's Play can be a produced video that is recorded, edited, and then posted on YouTube. Those don't particularly benefit from audience participation. But it can also be, "I'm streaming on Twitch for eight hours, let's do some CoD," and here participation is the point.

If someone does an "audience participation" stream for a blind Let's Play... yeah, that irritates the heck out of me since half the time they aren't paying attention to the game anyway.